It was a match made in literary heaven and when you hold, see and read the finished product in your hand, you would never have imagined that the author and her illustrator were meeting for the first time. That was just one of many interesting facts I gathered from a Thursday afternoon luncheon with new author Maya Soetoro-Ng and her illustrator Yuyi Morales.

As fellow French Laundry colleagues and friends gathered at Book Passage at the Ferry Building to welcome Chef Grant Achatz together with co-author Nick Kokonas for their book signing event, I imagined San Francisco must be a bit of a homecoming venue for him. Hearing him recalling his first try-out day at the French Laundry, meeting Thomas Keller who became an esteemed mentor throughout the years

Print is not dead. It’s struggling to stay alive and we will work hard to promote our friends in the independent book industry who are very special to us. There will always be people who will want to collect books and magazines, people who prefer to flip through pages and have it handy by their bedside table or sun room. I can’t think of a salon or waiting room at a spa just twiddling my fingers. I like to read the magazines to put me in a mood.

Divine Chocolate, wraps up our Chocolate countdown for the month! This pioneering farmer-owned Fair Trade chocolate brand, celebrates the debut of a new recipe book from noted cookbook author Linda Collister. The Divine Heavenly Chocolate Recipe book ( Paperback, $19.95, 192 pages, Absolute Press, 978-1906650414) will be available exclusively at Barnes & Noble retail locations as well as www.serrv.org at the suggested retail price of $35.00.

Patricia V. Davis posted that piece of advice along with 15 others in the hopes that they’d help one of her 20-something readers save the precious time she was wasting by torturing herself needlessly, something too many young people do. That first simple post hit a nerve; within a week it turned into an internet phenomenon ? reposted by hundreds of other blogs and read by thousands.

The expressions on our faces were priceless when we received the latest book about (and by) Justin Bieber. “This person is a little too young to have an autobiography” we thought. But you have to hand it to the guy. If there was a current phenomenon that was in actual fact massive in all proportions, it would be the billions of “beliebers” that sprung across the entire planet.

A crowd overflowing to the streets, cash registers swiping credit cards non-stop, the lovely decked-out trees outside and the chilly weather of Castro Street in the charming downtown area of Mountain View last Thursday night almost felt like the holidays just started all over again. What was the commotion all about?

I must confess. I was a little bit afraid of meeting Roseanne Barr. I had my preconceived notions about the television comedienne, but heck ~ I was in for a great afternoon with Kaye and John. So off I went yesterday afternoon to one of my favorite independent bookstores, Books, Inc. in Berkeley.

Tweet Out and About on Assignment: Kaye Cloutman and Lulu Del Rosario When I came across an episode of The O’Reilly Factor by accident where he had ground-breaking comedienne Roseanne Barr as a guest chatting about her political views as well as her “macadamia nut farm”, I couldn’t help but feel a little anxious as I
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Food Network superstar Bobby Flay kick-started the holidays in Berkeley recently as he signed hundreds of books and “threw down” with the crowd who waited hours outside the Books Inc. Books and Magazine Store. Fans of the beloved Iron Chef will have a blast with his new book as he takes his readers on a page-by-page tour around the country that features countless culinary masters and their award-winning dishes.